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James Thomas (March 26, 1946 – August 6, 2010) was an American computer scientist in the field of visualization. He spent much of his career at the
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the United States Department of Energy national laboratories, managed by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science. The main campus of the laboratory is in Richland, Washington. O ...
.


Life

James Joseph Thomas was born March 26, 1946 in Spokane, Washington. He majored in mathematics at
Eastern Washington University Eastern Washington University (EWU) is a public university in Cheney, Washington. It also offers programs at a campus in EWU Spokane at the Riverpoint Campus and other campus locations throughout the state. Founded in 1882, the university is ...
, and received a master's degree from
Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant uni ...
in computer science. His professional career started at General Motors, where he worked in the area of computer-aided graphics and design soon after graduate school in early 1970s. He later returned to his home state to join the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (later renamed Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) as a computer scientist in 1976. He rose through the ranks from senior scientist, staff scientist, chief scientist, to laboratory fellow. In the 1980s, he was a member of the founding team who conceptualized and developed the core concepts for what is today’
William R. Wiley Environmental and Molecular Sciences Laboratory
a DOE scientific user facility located at PNNL. In the early 1990s, to address the problem of information overload, Thomas headed a team of information technology researchers to develop the SPIRE document
Visualization (computer graphics) Visualization or visualisation (see spelling differences) is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. Visualization through visual imagery has been an effective way to communicate both abstract an ...
visualization and analytics system. As of 2019, the successor to this system
IN-SPIRE
is still in use. In the early 2000s, Thomas led and coordinated a team to formally define a new research area, visual analytics. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established the National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC) at PNNL in 2004, naming Thomas as its founding director. On July 31, 2009, Thomas retired from his position at PNNL after 33 years. He died on August 6, 2010.


Professional Societies

Thomas organized the
SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference on computer graphics (CG) organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH, starting in 1974. The main conference is held in North America; SIGGRAPH Asia ...
conference in 1987, founded and organized the first ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) gathering in 1989, chaired ACM SIGGRAPH from 1989 to 1992, served as editor-in-chief o
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
from 2002 to 2006. He chaired the IEEE Visualization conference in 2003. He helped found th
IEEE Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST) Symposium
that began in 2006. Thomas has also served on industry, government, and international advisory boards.


Awards

*1985: Science Digest's Top 100 Scientific Innovations *1986: ''R&D Magazine''s R&D 100 Award *1989: Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer *1996: ''R&D Magazine'''s R&D 100 Award *1998: Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer *2007: Fellow,
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...
*2009: Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation Homeland Security Award


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Jim American computer scientists Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2010 deaths 1946 births